3/7/2008 2:20:08 PM

From what I heard in a podcast by an Adobe RIA evangelist (http://redmonk.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=315026) the Flash Player gets downloaded about 12 million times a day. Now for both numbers you have to keep in mind that these are not actually all new users, but also updates of existing (I think I already downloaded Silverlight three times, and Flash player probably at least ten or more times).

Karsten Silz

3/7/2008 4:12:42 PM

Who cares? It's Microsoft, and Microsoft are morally bankrupt.

They lobby for software patents
They fund attacks on open-source
They're convicted monopolists
They're DRM enthusiasts

And this...

www.onenaught.com/.../web-breakdown.png

doesn't keep hitting the front page of digg without a reason.

Nick Taylor

3/7/2008 5:24:02 PM

Well, Microsoft has a lot of employees

Seriously though, why would non-developers non-MS people download Silverlight? Are there any sites using Silverlight instead of Flash?

Aaron

3/7/2008 6:18:12 PM

You are so biased towards MS development tools that you cannot realize the "nothing new" they bring to the RIA space.
Probably for existing developers like you, that never saw a piece of technology like these before, its impressive, but for most of the developers that did not live in caves over the last 6-7 years, we know that Flash exists and that it is cross-platform (And CROSS-PLATFORM means running on different Operating Systems - not only different windows versions) and that it is fast, easy, designer friendly, binary, runs in a sandbox, it has a dozen of multimedia options, it is the defacto video player of the web nowdays, it is the most distributed software in history, it's runtime is small, smaller than any of the competitions.

ion gion

3/7/2008 8:07:08 PM

Because, they are smarter than they are developers. Just by making their website built-on "Silver Light Technology" they are essentially mass distributing their platform. Brilliant! Microsoft knows how to segway into different businesses and call them all Microsoft.

Nick

Why is Microsoft, Microsoft?

3/7/2008 9:50:17 PM

Too bad it is only version 1 - we will have to wait a couple years more for the fancy version 2 to be adopted...

Alex

3/7/2008 10:19:22 PM

Do you know much of these downloads are due Windows Update mechanism?

comrad

3/8/2008 12:14:06 PM

Well said, Jon.

Rick

3/8/2008 9:05:35 PM

@Jon
> Silverlight runs on Mac and Linux, it is not a Windows technology.

Really? Where can I download SL for linux from the MS Site? Don't tell me about Mono - because it has nothing in common with Siverlight. It's just a joke with 0 popularity and 0 installed base...

silwerlajt

3/9/2008 4:31:21 AM

"Silverlight runs on Mac and Linux, it is not a Windows technology."

Show me!

My comment was not offensive in nature, i am sorry it sounded like that, but i hate to see non-realistic comments on an imature technology thats pushed by bad market practices and not by features.

Then again, show me, give me the proof that silverlight runs on mac and linux (don't tell me silverlight == moonlight of the mono project, because it is not)
Flash is supported and developed by adobe on every operating system it supports, there are GNU releases of flash wannabe player but that is just like comparing moonlight with silverlight, where nothing works as it should (hat down for the people of go-mono for their impressive work, but to counter the bad policy of microsoft of not releasing a true cross-platform toolkit they have to work twice, once to recreate the framework and second to be very careful to how they recreate it not to look like the so called open source .net license)

I am aware of both these technologies cause i do not live in cave, one day, if silverlight will offer me better tools/means to express my ideas, i will for sure choose it right away. (want to know some of those: 3d hardware acceleration, open video/audio codecs, scriptable live streaming server, plugable extensions that flash does not have yet, why ms does not choose to go this path is something i am not able to comprehend, they have the most advanced graphic platform(directx), one of the easiest and non-brain-freaking framework(.net), they may one day win me over, up until then ..., anyway, does it even work for you on firefox on windows xp ? i met dozens of sites where it did not recognize it even installed... blah, enough!)

ion gion

3/10/2008 6:30:28 AM

Silverlight is not a windows technology? Then why the heck does it show up as an update in Windows update on my machine? How informed on things are you now?

Henrik

3/10/2008 3:22:04 PM

No jon but it makes the high numbers so high... there are so many people that don't check what they get thru the windows update and thereby installs everything that microsoft gives them. The differance lies for example in firefox vs. IE(v. 7) where you got it thru windows update and Microsoft said it making a "smash hit" on the market and that's only because windows update... so hope you get my point and I dind't wanderd of in my trieng if explination of my point.

Marcus

3/16/2008 9:11:48 AM

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code-inside.de

5/3/2008 9:35:03 AM

We would love to use Silverlight to present video testimonials on our website. We don't even mind the fact that most people don't have it installed yet. What we *do* mind is that people have to restart their browsers. We pay good money to get these people and don't want to lose them. What are they supposed to do, write down the URL? Search through their History records? This is crazy.

Maija Johnstone